Lie like the Dead
by Timmesque
Summary: [gore, blood, not meant for the weak-hearted at any rate] Harry Potter has seen death before, but nothing could prepare him for the exquisiteness of it...(one-shot)


**Mentire come i morti  
****-Lie like the Dead-  
****By Timberwolf220**

**-Do you dream of death before you sleep-  
****-Or do you dream of madness?-  
**—**Ninja master Gara from "Bastard!"**

**Summary: Harry Potter has experienced Death before. But no experience of death could prepare him for the exquisiteness of it.**

**-XX-**

The first time Harry Potter saw Death when he was about a year old. Of course, the memory itself isn't very clear and he could only remember through vague memories that encroached on his curtain of dreams. Sometimes, the pale crooked hand would draw the tenacious curtain back and the green light would swirl around his eyes like a whirlpool. Then he would wake up, drenched in his own sweat and take several minutes to catch his breath.

The next day, he would forget about it completely.

The second time Harry Potter saw Death is when he attacked Professor Quirrel. He couldn't remember much of that either. He could only recall how the nebulous boils began to puck the white skin and how Quirrel kept screaming and there was so much screaming that it hurt his ears and he wished he could block out the noise and he felt the ground had caved from under his feet and he was falling, falling, and everything around him was churning like butter and milk in a farm. And the stars were falling with him.

The next day, he woke up and he didn't remember what he had dreamed.

The third time Harry Potter saw Death was when he saw Cedric Diggory die. It was that memory that crystallized in his head and the one he remembered best. It had been surprisingly quick and he remembered wondering how death came so quickly. Like a flash of lightning, it seemed to him and it made him smile later on that this was the most feared curse ever, this curse that didn't even make the victim feel any sort of pain. It was a blessing of death, he concluded slightly, always ignoring everyone's fear of being cast into death by the green curse. The colour of his eyes, they whispered, is the colour of death.

When he had dreams of Cedric Diggory, they were distorted. Cedric was always on a sacrificial altar. A crucifix of the Christian religion, he would see and Cedric would have the crown of thorns of his head, the blood staining and mingling with his sweat-soaked face. And there were nails on his hands and legs, binding him there and he would see himself with the roman spear and pierce Cedric's side. And he always laughed when Cedric cried in pain.

The next day, his hands would feel tired as if they were holding that spear all night.

Harry Potter was not particularly religious by nature. In fact, even before his introduction to the wizarding world, his religious beliefs were below the required minimum. The Dursleys went to church regularly, and that was probably the core of their hatred of Harry. After all, didn't the Church burn witches at the stake? The Dursleys was rigorous as they were orthodox.

But Harry Potter simply didn't care and he wasn't of the age when he would care. In fact, if questioned about his beliefs, he would shrug his shoulders and change the topic slightly. An ordinary person would find this odd, but this was Harry Potter and exceptions were made in his case.

After the invasion of Voldemort in his head, Harry Potter's dreams have taken a frightening turn. He would see Voldemort's memories and that was enough to be called the stuff of nightmares. He could recall each sickening detail with a vivid and detached quality that made people question his sanity. But no one asked, hence he never offered. But the thrill of the nightmare was like the burn of a secret and Harry Potter's hands twitched at any mention of death.

The signs were showing, but Harry Potter ignored them.

He still remembered the first dream he received from Voldemort after the aftermath of Sirius' death. He remembered how obsessed he was in bringing Sirius back, trying to make denial his weapon, trying to see if magic was still the stuff behind miracles.

What was the point of turning water into wine if it can't bring Sirius back?

When the dream came, Harry Potter believed for a moment that he would see Sirius and perhaps bring him back. It was a fool's hope, but a fool's hope was like anyone else's hope and it was crushed just as easily. Voldemort had brought some muggles and he let all his deatheaters leave the room. He murmured to himself, "Look at Death, Potter"

Harry Potter was entranced by the spells cast on the muggles. Every few minutes there was a sickening crunch of bones and sometimes he could see it sticking out from their shoulder, so white, like the moon. Then the blood came. It flowed so easily. It felt like glue on his fingertips, the stickiness between reminiscence of the muggle fixing solvent. But how it flowed! More graceful then any river and it rippled with the fluidity of a boy's muscles. He found himself drowning in that river, reveling in the feeling, the warmth bathing him so soothingly. It coated his face and his eyes felt raw. And he kept sinking slowly in this pit of blood that submerged him so completely.

When Harry Potter woke up, he went to the bathroom to puke. Then he stared at his reflection for three hours before he went to class.

When the next dream came and passed by in the same manner as the previous dream, Harry Potter went to Severus Snape for help. Severus Snape however snarled at him, his thin lips curling in disgust and he threw the boy out without even listening to a word Harry Potter had said.

The next dream was the most pleasurable. He watched as Voldemort took the blade and ran it over the salted skin, eliciting slight gasps of pain and shivers. Such tiny shivers betrayed volumes of emotion and Harry Potter could feel the fear radiating off the victim in waves that rivaled the oceans' power. Then the blade sank itself into the victim's skin and the scream seemed to give him a thrill he didn't know existed before. There were rivulets of blood that ran down from the neck to the victim's tattered clothes, staining them beyond its original colour. The victim's thighs were been twisted, making it impossible for walking ever again. Every bone in the victim's fingers had been broken and bent in angles that would have seemed impossible. And the screams were more beautiful than any symphony of sirens he had ever heard.

Harry Potter woke up in the morning, his hand on his chest. He spent the time twirling his wand between his fingers. And he stared at his reflection in the mirror and began to sing Christmas carols.

It was the fifth of October.

Harry Potter never told anyone. He knew the moment he told anyone about these dreams; he would be carted off to the wizarding asylum. And the sad thing was he knew they were justified in doing so.

Voldemort sang when he killed them in the night. And he would only sing Christmas carols. Harry Potter knew impeccably why, though the actual knowledge would escape him when he woke up. But there were thoughts floating around in Voldemort's head and Harry Potter need only to snatch the correct one to grasp the enigma which is Voldemort.

Voldemort sang Christmas carols because they were the only songs he knew. An ancient memory had been the drifting of the soft melody which Voldemort had only recognized in his later years. When he sang, Harry Potter forgot that this man had killed, that this man had taken everything from him, and he even forgot why he ever hated that man.

It was around this time that suspicions and rumours had reached a new peak. Harry Potter was unreachable, even by those he was closest to. He spent every waking minute mute and dazed and he began to wait for the moon to bring its curtain of sleep. His eyes were dark, darker than they were before and Ron swore he saw flecks of crimson in his eyes.

And he still sang Christmas carols.

The dreams grew so vivid each night and more sensual as well. Voldemort catered to both tastes, Harry Potter had discovered, and the mornings were hard to deal with. But it was certain that he wasn't even bothering to shield himself from the visions anymore. There was something enticing about sinking your teeth into the nape of someone's neck and taste the flesh beneath. To swirl your tongue into the crevasses of the body and clench up in ecstasy. The moonlight would catch into their backs and arch gracefully towards the moon, a fitting tribute. And Harry Potter lapped it up and woke up with a hard on.

When he went to the bathroom, he noticed that his eyes were flickering. He dismissed it and when he returned to his bed, he began to pleasure himself.

The soft lullaby of the Christmas carol would float past his ear when he lingered in the waking world and not for the first time, Harry Potter wondered whether he was sane.

It was the night of the thirty-first of October that Harry Potter finally mustered up the power to talk to his enemy in his head. It started as a whisper, nothing more than the rattle of a dry autumn leaf that slowly grew like a cry from the masses rising up for a revolution. Voldemort was on his throne when Harry Potter spoke. The throne was dark, darker than the room itself which was lit by a few torches. Ebony, smooth and almost silky in its beauty. Harry Potter reveled in it and then sidetracked himself.

Voldemort had heard the comment though, "It is beautiful, isn't it?"

Harry Potter breathed slightly, "Infinitely so."

"Would you like one?"

There was a silence that had built around them before from the dreams. But the walls were crumbling because of all the cracks that the rats had made. Harry Potter looked around the room and felt empty. Hollowed out with a spoon.

"Yes," He answered, "I would like a throne like that."

When Harry Potter woke up the next morning, his eyes had turned crimson. But I digress when I say that. Because that wasn't Harry Potter who looked into the mirror that morning, but the tormented individual we all know as Tom Riddle, Voldemort. As for Harry Potter, there was no sign of him except for the scar that marked him as death himself.

**-XX-**

**A/N: Umm…this ranks top of the freak-o-meter. Don't even know where I got the idea for this. And I'm pretty sure the asylum will take me soon and Hell seems to coming a lot closer than I remembered it to be. **

**But…in a sense, it was an essence of Harry Potter that hasn't been captured before. And I can say that with pride.**


End file.
